To Call Her Soul Her Own
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Based on the episode "The Perfect Mate". Kamala, an empathic metamorph, adapts to the desires of any man nearby. Only Captain Picard sees her as an equal, but she is promised to another man. Can she find a way between her duty and her heart?


To Call Her Soul Her Own

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Copyright: Paramount/Viacom

If someone had asked Kamala to describe her life as an empathic metamorph, she would have been hard pressed to find the words. Sometimes she thought she was like a mirror, reflecting the passions and tastes, the wants and needs of every male around her. Sometimes she felt more like a camouflaging creature, changing her colors and patterns to adapt to her environment. She was always changing, always unstable; only one thing remained constant – the need for companionship. Without someone to adapt to, someone to make happy, she was incomplete. She had never questioned that...until she met Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the Federation starship _Enterprise_.

Other men simultaneously worshipped and objectified her, crowding around her as if she were a beautiful statue for them to touch and stare at. She had heard them referring to her as 'the metamorph', as if she didn't have a name. They loved her because of what she was, not who she was – but then, _who_ she was changed according to whom she was with. Kamala surrounded by tipsy miners had an earthy laugh and a fondness for hard liquor. Riker's Kamala was as sexually frank and smoothly seductive as a Betazoid. Worf's Kamala could mimic the Klingon mating call, something between a growl and a purr, to perfection. None of these men had ever considered _her_ wishes – and why should they, if it was in her very nature to want whatever they wanted?

But Captain Picard had. _"Who are you when you're alone?"_ he had asked.

She did not know – but she knew quite well who she wanted to be. Picard's Kamala was intelligent, well-spoken and poised, combining gentleness with a deep inner strength. She had a wry, quiet sense of humor, and she could love with more depth and passion than any woman Kamala had ever been.

The Captain was a good man, strong and wise, with a powerful sense of honor and an unshakeable devotion to his duty. Being with him had been a joy and a revelation to her, from the moment she had come out of stasis and felt his kind, but firm authority in the air like a warm blanket. She remembered his self-deprecating grin over playing the Valtese xylophone; his conflicted tangle of feelings – wanting to stay for his own sake, needing to leave for the sake of the peace treaty; his thirst for learning and exploration; his never failing courtesy to her.

She wanted to be _his_. It was not the usual compulsion, but a conscious choice; perhaps the first one she had ever made. The past few days had opened her eyes to the limits of her existence; she had been trained all her life to be one thing, and one thing only: a wife for Alric of Volt, the largest bargaining chip in a peace treaty with her people's former enemies.

The choice of a mate to bond with, to fix one's personality at that person's level, was the closest thing to freedom a metamorph ever had – and Kamala refused to let anyone take that precious choice away from her.

"I am for you, Jean-Luc Picard," she whispered aloud. He was several decks away and would not hear; for a moment, the chilling loneliness of the empty room gripped her like a vise. But her own ears heard, and her heart and mind were in accord. That was enough.

She could feel it. It was as if her soul had been a bubbling, churning waterfall caught in a sudden drop of temperature; her thoughts, feelings, opinions and preferences, which had been whirling and tumbling about all her life, began to settle into one clear pattern, like water turning into a smooth layer of ice. Taking stock of her newfound inner landscape, she sat up straight in her armchair, like a lady, and smoothed back her rumpled chestnut curls.

_I have an interest in archeology and Western Earth culture._

_My favorite beverage is Earl Grey tea._

_I have a scientific mind and love to learn and explore._

_I hold fast to my moral convictions even in the face of adversity._

_I am stubborn when I have to be._

_I care deeply for my people._

_I am for you, Jean-Luc Picard._

It struck her, as she was discovering these things, that this moment held a tinge of bitterness that should not be part of any metamorph's bonding. For a few moments, she curled up in her chair and let the tears shake her, like a dried leaf rattling in the wind.

She would never hear that deep, warm voice of his telling her he loved her; never see those grey eyes sparkling across a breakfast table. She would never be his best friend, right hand, lover, mother to his children. A metamorph was meant to _stay_ with her chosen mate, not marry someone else.

She sobbed herself hoarse, mourning for the chance at happiness slipping through their fingers so soon after they had found each other.

Once she had cried herself out, however, she stood up went to her bed, exhausted but determined to face tomorrow. Captain Picard's sense of honor awoke in her own heart, a small white flame giving her strength. Two planets depended on her marriage to Alric, two races who had been destroying each other for far too long. She had promised to do this, and she _must_ keep her promise.

Besides, now that she was bonded, she bore the imprint of his personality like a seal in wax. Choosing a mate who made you strong and bright and happy was a metamorph's greatest joy, and she had chosen him – and, as a consequence, chosen herself. For the first time in her life, Kamala's soul was her own.

It was a treasure nothing and no one could take away.


End file.
